University of Virginia Library

12. XII.

BACKERD, turn backerd, O Time in yoor flite,”
is the fust line uv a song wich I heerd not
long since. Wood that Time cood perform that back
ackshen feat, and get us all back wher we wuz six
years ago. But Time can't. Time is a perpetooal
moshen, wich must go on, and on, and wich can't
never retrace her steps.

The situashen ain't pertickelerly agreeable jist
now. It hezn't a joocy look, nor does it promise an
improvement in the future. The confidence uv the
Dimocrisy uv Kentucky is shaken to the extent that
it's lost its equilibrium and totters to its centre.
When it falls, I shel be found under the rooins.

The passage of the Military Law may be sed to be
the last feather wich reely ought to break the Kentucky
camel's back. It's the deepest and finishnest
stab at constooshnel liberty and ekal rites, inezmuch
ez it not only blasts forever the hopes uv re-establishin
slavery, but gives the nigger all the rites and
privileges enjoyed by white men. We, who are
chiefly interested, are not to be consulted in the
matter. Fedral hirelins, whose very presence is
pizen to the people uv these States, are to be quartered
onto us to see that “justis” — wat holler
mockry! — is done to em. The governments established
by Androo Johnson is overturned ef they don't
play the fiddle to military satraps, and accept the
Constooshnel Amendment, wich perhibits them who
wuz our champions in the late effort to destroy a
government wich we hatid, from takin hold uv it
agin and runnin it. Wuz ther ever sich a mixter
uv injustis and perscripshen? Wuz ther ever sich
severity? Wuz ther ever sich a lack uv magnanimity?
And all this time where is Johnson? He
vetoed these bills, — but wherefore? He knowd that
the Rump Congress hed a majority uv two thirds,
and cood pass em over his veto; why, then, when
they set his authority at defiance, didn't he rise in
his might and disperse em? Where, too, wuz the

Dimocrisy uv the North? Where are they in this
crisis, when our dearest rites — their greatest care
— is bein shiprecked on the iron-bound rocks uv
despotism? Where are they, I say? Why don't they
rally, ez they threatened, and demand that Johnson
shel hurl them levelers from their usurped seats, and
restore peace, on sich terms ez we shall consider
ekitable, to this wunst happy, but now distracted,
country. Alas! they hevn't time. I see them who
breathed so much vengence and slawtrins afore
Johnson hed offices to dispose uv, a neglectin us, and
a runnin about gittin signatoors to applicashens for
Post Offises, and hollerin to us ez they ketch their
breath, “Accept the condishens — git back into the
Yoonion, that we may elect the President in 1868,
who'll give us all the patronage!” Their noosepapers
all shreek, “Accept, and get back into the
Yoonion, that we may elect the next President, who'll
give us all the patronage!” And that ain't the
worst uv it. Them wich we bought up with appintments
diskivered on a sudden that a Abolition Senit
hed to confirm em, and to sekoor that they hev gone
back onto us. Custer is a shinin example, Wilcox
is another, and I mite menshun hundreds uv others
who hev slid back in the same manner.

Troy wuz taken by the strategy uv the Greeks,

who exposed a wooden horse, in the bowels uv wich
wuz conceeled armed men, wich the verdant Troys
pulled inside their gates. Androo Johnson wuz the
wooden horse wich wuz sent into our camp by the
Ablishnists, and the offices wuz the armed men in
his bowels. They hev bin our rooin. So long ez
they wuz in the dim distance, the Democracy wuz
hungry and feroshus, and capable uv almost anythin
— so soon ez they got em, they become quiet ez
lambs. The Postmaster who holds a commishn sez
to himself, “Wherefore shel I bust the Government
under wich I hev a place? Kin I git another under
the new one?” and he yells to us, “Accept the
terms!” We capchered the camp uv the enemy,
but are demoralized by the plunder we found. It's
the old trick, over agin, these offices, which the
white men yoost to play onto the Injins, to wit: —
evacuatin a posishen and leavin a barrel uv whiskey
behind, knowin that the Injin's instincts, like them
uv a Kentucky Dimokrat's, wood lead him to git
blind drunk, and make him a easy prey to the
skelpin knife. The offisis wuz the whiskey wich
intoxicated our braves; and our skelps, so to speek,
hang at the belts uv our enemies. Sumner hez
many, Thad Stevens hez many, and Butler is a
gatherin uv em with a rapidity wonderful to behold.

But wat marks the demoralizashen uv the Dimocrisy
the most, is the follerin extract wich I cut from
the Noo York World, wunst our trusted orgin. I
hev not the heart to re-write it. I paste the slip
onto the paper; hence I am not responsible for sich
errors uv orthografy and grammer ez may be discovered
into it. Here it is: —

“As regards the popular notion of the odor of
the negro, it may be positively stated that he, in this
respect, is like the white, — a clean negro bein free
from it, and a foul one cursed by it.”

Ef this be troo — ef the nigger don't stink, then
Noah got tite, and Ham wuz cust in vane — then
Paul sent back Onesimus for nothin, and Hager is
uv no more interest to the Dimocrisy than any other
female who hez bin ded several thousand years.
The Dimocratic party wuz built upon this stink;
and ef that corner-stun is knocked out, the temple
falls, and buries all beneath its rooins who are sheltered
under it, uv whom I am the cheefest and the
loveliest among ten thousand.

At one fell swoop the wind is knockt out uv the
sales uv the Northern Dimocrisy. Wat is the nigger
now to them ef he does not stink? “Popler
noshen,” indeed! Trooly it wuz a popler noshen.
That stink led hundreds uv thousands uv Democrats

by the nose. That “odor” — ez the writer styles
it — wuz our best holt, and wun wich wuz everything
to us. That stink wuz all that elevated the
Demokrat over the nigger — that wuz our mark of
sooperiority. We, at times, wuz not uv the precise
odor uv Nite-bloomin serious. A Democratic mass
convenshen, when in a tite room, with two stoves
in it, wuz not the most odorous gatherin in the
world; but we thanked God continyooally that the
smell wich ariz ez the room got hot wuz not the
pecooliar aroma uv the nigger, and we wuz comforted.
But this writer redooses the whole thing —
the whole difference between the nigger and a Democrat
— to a matter of color and cleanliness. Wat
heresy! Wat iconaclasm! (this last word meanin,
I believe, idol breakin, or suthin uv that sort.) Ef
this be troo, then in the nite time, a nigger with
his feet washed is better than a Demokrat! For
one, now I care not ef Dr. Cummins' “Last Warnin
Cry” be trooly the last. I'm sorry that he rented
his house for ninety-nine years, ez it hez a tendency
to destroy my faith in his beleef that the world is
about peggin out. The sooner Gabrel blows his
horn the better I shel be sooted.

Here agin this matter uv state offisis comes in.
The Dimocrisy uv Noo York see that nigger suffrage

is inevitable, and to sekoor their share uv it, they're
biddin in time; forgettin that while they're acheevin
a temporary success on that side uv the cirkle we're
losing all control uv the niggers on this. Wat did
the South ever care for Dimokratic successes, 'ceptin
ez it bolstered up their niggers?

I'm discouraged. I see afore me trouble. I see
but one or two streeks uv lite on my horizon. Ohio
won't let her niggers vote no how, and sum other
States are in the same fix, and possibly this ackshen
may be the sign uv returnin reason. Ohio may, after
all, be the rock agin wich the waves uv fanatakism
may beet in vane, and conservatism, gatherin strength
there, may finally assert itself elsewhere. May the
Lord send it, for ef this thing goes on, I'm a lost
and rooined man.